Well, my 1bed apt is too small for my dream dog (Great Dane), so I've been tossing around the idea of getting into fish tankery. the only experience i had was a little 10gal tank when i was about 10yo and that lasted all of 3months. I know I wanna get into freshwater tropicals (no saltwater for this beginner), and I think I'm looking into a tank around 20gal. I've found a few 'starter kits' that have all your filters/heaters/etc and I know not to buy a bunch of fish right off the bat and to do a bottom feeder/medium swimmers/top feeders to have a full 'ecosystem'. I'm wanting to keep the total under $200 (tank/fish/supplies/decorations), and it looks like its perfectly doable based on some of the product reviews/etc I've read. basically, i'm just wanting any input you guys can offer. thanks
As a former fish tank addict, here are a few things to look out for. Sorry for the wall of text. 1. There is no such thing as 1 tank, youll always end up with more. 2. Stay away from under gravel filters, they trap waste and make it difficult to maintain proper water chemistry. Use a "hang on back" filter or canister filter for best results. 3. As a general rule of thumb, never have more than 1 inch of fish per gallon of water in the tank. IE 10 2 inch fish or 5 4 inch fish or 20 1 inch fish etc etc 4. Get a cheap water chemistry test kit. Stay away from the test strip kits and get a color dropper kit that measures for Ph, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. 5. Your tank's biological filter will establish in 3-5 weeks. This is commonly known as it being "cycled". Cycled refers to the nitrogen cycle, which is where you have generated enough beneficial bacteria in the tank. This bacteria feeds on ammonia (fish and food waste) and turns it into nitrate. Ammonia is toxic to fish, Nitrate is less harmful to fish. Ill describe my preferred way to cycle a tank below. 6. Stay away from using carbon in your filters. Its good for removing impurities in the water, but when it gets old it simply releases all of the chemicals it has filtered back into the water. I stick with the KISS method. 7. Figure out what type of fish you want, and then figure out what they get along with. Most types of barbs kill everything smaller than them, sometimes even other barbs. 8. Feed small amounts, usually only as much as the fish can eat in 2 minutes. Some of my tanks I would only feed once per week. 9. When adding water to a tank, mix it with a product that dechlorinates it. I use Prime, there are several other brands that do the same thing. Chlorinated water kills your beneficial bacteria. 10. Stay away from cheap decorations, theyre often made in China and leech toxins and paint into your tank. The best looking tanks are natural ones with sand, real wood, and real plants. When using sand, pour it into a 5 gallon bucket and shove a garden hose into the bottom of the bucket to wash it first. You will know the sand is clean when the water overflowing out of the bucket goes from looking like milk to being crystal clear. ----Cycle---- 1. Fill tank with water and a prewashed substrate. Add dechlorinator to entire volume, usually 1 drop per gallon. Dont add plants yet and make sure you have no carbon in your filter or it will neutralize the dechlorinator. 2. Allow tank to turn over on its own for 2-3 days. Once the tank settles measure the Ph. Hopefully its somewhere between 6.4-7.4. Your tank may look like it has brown algae over the first few days, thats a result of what they call "new tank syndrome". IMO, never use those algae killing chemicals as they usually kill the good stuff (and sometimes the fish) in your tank. 3. Add 2-4 small hardy fish. Make sure theyre hardy, because these guys are the ones that will have to live in ammonia for a few days to get the biological filter started. Dont pour fish store water into your tank! Its full of bacteria. Scoop the fish out of the bag with a small net and drop them into the tank. 4. Measure the ammonia. The cycle process will have started once you start seeing nitrite. Salt neutralizes most of the harm caused by nitrite, so you can add 1/2 of a teaspoon once the nitrite shows up. Ammonia breaks down to nitrite, nitrite breaks down to nitrate. 5. If the fish are showing stress, you can do a partial water change to relieve the nitrite levels, just remember to dechlorinate the water before adding it to the tank. 6. Within 10-15 days, if you have done everything right, you should start seeing a decrease in nitrite and a rise in nitrate. When you see nitrate, you should be seeing zero ammonia. Keep testing daily until you see zero ammonia and zero nitrite. Once these conditions are met, you will have a fully cycled tank. 7. Continue adding fish, 1-2 per week, until you reach your inch/gallon limit. 8. Try and change 25% of the water per month with fresh dechlorinated water. The more water changes the better. Dont worry about temp differences. Thanks all I can think of right now, Ill try and add more later. Good luck! *protip* If you have a friend with a healthy tank, ask them to give you a couple scoops of their substrate. Put that substrate into your tank to seed it with beneficial bacteria, greatly decreasing your cycle time. Ive cycled tanks in 48 hours before using this method. Never ask an aquarium store for their substrate as its often full of germs. *note about sand* Never use kids play sand as it is silicate based and will put your PH through the roof and make your water very hard. Only use pool filter sand or aquarium store sand, which is crushed quartz. *note about driftwood* If you find a nice piece of wood somewhere, boil it first to kill anything that may be living in it. Usually driftwood will float for a month before it will become waterlogged, so leave it in a bucket of water outside with a rock or something on it.
I've had tanks for years as well. All the above info is spot on! I've found that the larger the tank, the easier it is to maintain. There's more room for error. I have a 55gal. I like cichlids. They're fresh water fish, so the water is cheap to maintain. I use natural rocks and shells to raise my ph from the neutral tap water. It takes time, but in 6 months a natural cycle is much stronger then one sustained with chemicals. But, you'll need them as well to help out. I'll go even further, I like African cichlids because of their final size. Most don't get larger then 8". South American's can get huge and some will even become aggressive enough to bite you when you're cleaning the tank. Sounds fun or cool at first, but the novelty of it can wear off quickly when blood is drawn. They call them Red Terrors for a reason. Just saying... One last thing. Try to add as little of the fish store's water to your tank when you add the fish. If they don't have germs (as stated in a previous post), they'll have tiny snails that you'll never get rid of.
Thanks for the awesome info, I think I am gonna wait till next paycheck and get a bigger tank. Found some awesome videos out there on how to start up a tropical freshwater setup. I like the idea of natural products, but not sure about live plants, I've always liked the driftwood look in tanks anyways. Keep it coming guys, this is extremely helpful. What kind of fish does everyone have?
your fish and tank health will become more stable imo with live plants and actually cuts down on maintaince planted beta tank planted tetra tank nano reef clown fish all these have a sump tanks set up below which makes water changes much easier as the main tanks are rarely touched. Invest in a simple timer for the lights so you can control the light cycle.
Sump setups just use buckets of water below, correct? So changing it out is as simple as bringing a new bucket in and swapping them?
The post above by ChrisW is spot on. The biggest piece of advice I could give you is to take it slow and BE PATIENT. I've seen hundreds of tank set-ups crash because the owner rushes the cycle or pushes the load of the bacteria in the tank. I managed Optimum Aquarium in Kennesaw for 5 years. After that I started working for a commercial company who manufactured custom filtration equipment and tanks for large aquariums, zoos, and universitys for research. Throughout all of this I had my own maintenance company on the side maintaining tanks for businesses and families. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions....I've done tanks as small as a gallon up to 3000 Gallons.
In essence, a sump is another smaller tank under the main one that houses your biological filtration media. I keep my heaters in the sump most times, too.
Just picked up 3 Tiger Barb today. If you are going to get a schooling fish I'd recommend buying them in threes.
Back to the top guys. I'm finally picking up a 55 gallon tank and decided to go the salt water and live rock (no reef, possibly a couple of invertebrates) route. Will be getting all pumps, filters, and live rock first. Plan to cycle for ~ 2 weeks. Have a few fish in mind but am open to suggestions for good beginner saltwater fish.
What type of filter are you going with? Be sure to ask if the live rock is cured yet or not. If it's already cured you can go ahead and add a couple fish and some crabs/snails. If not you'll need to wait until all the funk from the ocean dies off. Clowns are very hardy and a great first fish, get a pair. They can change sexes and the larger of the two will become the female.
Looking at clowns. Yeah the rock is already in, about to check my pH and probably pick up some fish either tomorrow or Sunday. Looking at clowns, a blenny, possibly an urchin and an anemone. Also considering either a chromis or basslet. Depending on what they have. Local fish specialist is pretty awesome. Have a great assortment.